Raped, just like a real mullard.

lol

It is a positive experience, from a negative experience, but I wouldn’t lose any sleep about loyalty or lack therof to a huge private equity firm.

An offshore global mega private equity firm could never command the love that Hope and other British manufacturing companies deserve.

I am sure Halfords can take the snub..

Its owners, CVC Capital Partners, allegedly has a net worth of some $46 billion.. with links to Citigroup… there’s bound to have been lots of norty ness in their shenanabang.

I wouldn’t lose any sleep about taking your money elsewhere.. fact is, a two year old bike shouldn’t break.

hmm CRC must have printed the wrong weight, the 18in is almost 6lbs not 4.6lbs…

I still like the frame, but it’s more heft than I will do justice.. I have no need for that kind of strength, I’m heavy, but I am not riding off garage roofs. Shame though, I would love a steel long-ish travel frame, but would rather be around the 5lb weight mark… such a thing must exist?

Perhaps I should look more toward 100-120mm fork travel for a steel project.

I agree. I like that 1:1 requires virtually no regular tuning/calibration of the barrel adjusters.. in this regard I appreciate it for increased repeatability, consistency..

I still use a Shimano front mech though and cranks.

I have had no problems with my X9 shifters either, I like how they feel, I appreciate the fact you can remove the cover with a little thumbscrew so you can, if you want, apply a little more light grease to the mechanism..

I had X5 previous to X9. I gave up trying to re-assemble the X5 I disassembled. Life’s too short.

I am also a huge fan of Middleburn cable oilers. I have 3 sets. People talk nonsense when they claim these are unnecessary or a cause of gummed up cables. They are brilliant. They allow lubricant to get into the shifters and cables and they blast out crap. They make cables last a long time. My last set I fitted 5mm cable oilers to 4.5mm Jagwire cable using neatly cut heatshrink sleeves. Looks very classy, brown and gold braided cables, brass coloured oilers with black heatshrink sleeves.

I really rate my X9 shifters.. cable changes can be fiddly though, but … I bought X9 for both bikes.

We all specify different builds. I have no wanting for a +6lb frame. It’s my money. Even if it is more than 6lb I am sure it is as good as you say but I want 5.5lbs or less from a steel frame. And so, in this instance, I wish to know its weight. Sanderson say 4.6lbs but this sounds a little erm.. optimistic.

I’m not a weight weenie, though I do specify a weight for me that works i.e. 500g rims rather than 400, 700g tyres rather than 500g or 900g…

So, anyone else?

The x7 and below are naughty little buggers if you open them up..

your cables are a mess.

That Inton looks nice… but can’t help think that 2 x cheap £35 ebay XML’s offers better value. You can after all angle the two seperate lightheads.. a major drawback of the Inton.

It wouldn’t weigh much more.

I have an anonymous D Bin P7, a Magicshinbe P7 C Bin, a Bike Ray II D Bin, and a Magicshine 3 x XPG. I am still a fan of the P7, especially the D Bin. The 3 x XPG Magicshine offers more flood than the P7 but I still prefer the D Bin P7… I have never tried an XML..

Very sad and another reason why our society and economy needs taking back and fixing..

There was a time, in my 40 years of life, when everything closed down over Christmas and there was real real peace and calm. A whole week of calm if I go back to when I was say 7….

Now the shops play Christmas tunes from the beginning of December and the high street barely shuts for two days. Some holiday. Some peace.

Your daughter is a retail slave, like many of our young now. A quarter of her peers don’t even have jobs. Sorry.

Merry humbug.

Considering the world is being raped by financial terrorists.. like Jamie Dimon of Goldman Sachs, very very very very very petty thieves like this are just well.. nothing.

Open your eyes, absorb some real news. Go find it. It’s not on the BBC.

I went opposite way and fitted air pikes.

The majority of road accidents occur between 8-9am and 4-6pm. I recall a statistic indicating most accideents caused by aggressive driving occur post work between 4pm and 6pm. Makes sense, work sometimes pushes us to cracking point, perhaps a bullying manager, and voila! That angry man who’s had a bad day is now behind you!

Which leads me on to the flow of negative energy that results.. if like me you hold on to it you can find yourself barking at the moon, well other cars, and so what started as 2 people upsetting one another, ends with a whole school full potentially.. the waves of hostility scattering from one person to the next..

All made worse of course by a society ill at ease with itself.. lots of unhappy people swerving round one another in metal cans or absorbed in their mobile phone when on foot…

The banks are robbing them, their wives and girlfriends or mothers are ugly, and they have little power to weild elsewhere in their empty ignorant serfdom world..

Don’t understand any mechanic who doesn’t use one, especially those who avoid using them with platitudes like ‘ if you can’t judge blah blah blah’. I wager, without torque wrenches, most home mechanics under tighten BB’s, and overtighten brake hardware and handlebar stem bolts.

I use a Park cantilver I have had for years for the big jobs, which a child cam re-calibrate (should it need it), and a small ratchet one that does the small jobs that I got from CRC.

Some mono thought cycle mechanics seem proud to boast that they don’t need one. These individuals have magic hands and can tighten any bolt to the right torque. Well apart from their barely tightened BB’s, and over tightened stems and rotor bolts….

Very strange.

Have a splendid Saturnalia….

What’s wrong with Clarks? Nothing, they are as good as EBC or OEM.. and they can often be found at a discount..

Really don’t understand why more people don’t use Middleburn cable oilers.. I have them on all three bikes.. they are fantastic. Make any set of cables last as long or longer than Gore.. in fact, with oilers, any cable will feel new for years..

I use SRAM pitstop inners and jagwire L3 outers.. both 4.5mm (old Jagwire standard) and 4mm..

could be carpal tunnel.. how old are you? do you have pain doing other stuff with your hands?

could be bar position etc.. might be thick grips, but xl gloves do suit a thick grip for me…

anyone mention this ITV weirdness already?

I’m kind of tempted to mess around with my u turn pikes on my mmmbop now I have seen this thread.. I’ve just always ran them at 140.

I don’t use the motion control lockout thing anymore though, I don’t trust it after all the fluid leaked into the lower leg. Takes an hour to fix, and I’d rather not again.. Plus I can’t trust myself to remember that I have the fork locked out before hitting something…

you could get some leverage on that bed.

50 minutes on a mountain bike… 18 miles…

You have no hills or traffic then?

I fancied Zammo’s bird, can’t remember her name. She made me feel squirmy in my under garments.

I don’t jump reds anymore, despite feeling it is safe or even safer for a cyclist to do so in certain road scenarios, especially ones that are known through experience to the rider.

However, since I witnessed two big issue seller killers, sorry, police, chase, herd, shout at, and jump upon, and give a fine to, a poor bewildered polish man trying to get to or from work on his ok, nothing flash, mountain bike (a man who did BTW jump the light in a safe way), I now wait or get off and walk it through the lights. I have no desire to be chased by the zombie brained army of the rich establishment, sorry I mean the police, dressed in their paramilitary gear on on their shit Land Rover bikes..

Time for my medication.

I have two sets of cycraguard, seperated by about 2 years. In those two years all stayed essentially the same, apart from the clamp for the rear. From the sublime to the ridiculous it went from a heavy and admittedly over-engineered quick release monstrosity to a flimsy clamp that I found needed some inner tube padding to firm it up. To be fair though, it has stayed put, and the slither of inner tube does stop it moving. I kook forward to the third clamp, the one where they get it right.

Interestingly, the guard also went from being American made to UK made. Which if true is nice. Made in UK is exactly what the UK needs.

we should invite that trail erosion american professor to post on here.

I have a set I have never used in a box somewhere.

I’ve never really understood why a lot of companies still insist on interrupted cable runs.

Un-interrupted with a cable oiler or two.. best thing in the world.

I have the Lezyne pump. It is a good pump, though there seem to be a lot of nice pumps around I haven’t tried.

It’s not much of a list.. not enough to argue about..

SRAM X9.

All agreed say I.

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Sod Shimano chains at any price, though I do run an XT front mech and SLX chainset.

I’ve noticed that kid’s shows have largely become dumbed down yet sped up.

Show a modern child a program like Bagpuss, Mr Ben, Finger Bobs, Mary Mungo and Midge etc., and the kids can’t cope. The kids soon lose interest, perhaps because they have too much breathing space. Things, stupid things, are not happening every second. I think… also the language was richer, more eloquent, and intelligent in those gems.

Having said that. I loved the Six Million Dollar Man. The best show in the world when I was 10, but a show I now recognise as stupid, yet it all still appeals.. the notion, the toys, the graphics of those toys and merchandise… the hopefullness in technology and in the future.

mmm dirt school!

Will they be wearing short tartan skirts?

At least he didn’t destroy his knackers like Boardman.

Perhaps he used Boardman’s knackers on another bike?

The rules have since been tightened to stop that kind of shenanigans.

I think it needs some music.

Try it with this..

go go bar

I hear ruffriders is very fast.